– July 20, 2012
12 dead, including children, and 38 injured as maniac, just 24, opens fire at Batman premier in Denver theater.
A masked gunman broke into a Denver cinema and shot dead at least 12 people and wounded 38 others, including children, during a late-night screening of the new Batman movie.
James Holmes, 24, kicked down a door to enter the packed theater in Aurora, Colorado, dressed in black and wearing a gas mask and bullet-proof vest.
He threw a smoke grenade and waited for it to explode before he started firing randomly into the audience with two pistols, a shotgun and what is believed to be an assault rifle, police said.
Aurora police said that 12 people died in the horrific attack, and the bodies of 10 victims are still inside the theatre. The youngest victim is believed to be just 12-years-old.
Scores of injured victims are now fighting for their lives; the youngest is just three months old, and is believed to have been shot at blank point range in the back.
One of the first victims to be named is a young female sportscaster who last month survived a mass shooting in Toronto.
Witnesses said that the man burst through the emergency exit at the front of the auditorium 30 minutes into the screening. He began firing into the terrified audience as he made his way up the stairs, picking his victims at random.
The unnamed man was arrested carrying two firearms without incident in a car park nearby and told the police that explosives were stored at his home. He remains in police custody.[related]
‘He did not resist. He did not put up a fight,’ says Frank Fania, a police spokesman.
Police chief Dan Oates told reporters that an apartment block in the north of Aurora had been evacuated as a consequence of the man’s claims his apartment had explosives.
